A very different steampunk from the ones I usually read! Which isn't saying much, as I haven't read a lot of steampunk, but still. This is very much an alternate history of the American south, set in New Orleans. I love the writing, and the wide variety of characters - I think my favourites were the two nuns, squabbling over how to cook gumbo while hiding smuggled chemical weapons in the stove! "The two of you is nuns?" questions the airship captain, and I had about the same reaction. Anyway, I enjoyed so much of this, and I really appreciate how much world-building has been achieved here in such a small package. This is a novella, the story only goes for 110 pages, and how fantastic is it to get so much stuffed in such a small book, instead of having to wade through 800 bloody pages for less effect.

The only thing that didn't appeal so much was the ending, which smacked a whole lot of deus ex machina to me. I'd rather Creeper made sure of deadness first and prevented things from kicking off, rather than the ending we did get. Not that interested in gods intervening to fix things up, to be honest, but that's a personal preference rather than a genuine plot problem I think.